


Carry You Home

by theprimrosepath



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Communication, Established Allura/Lance (Voltron), Hurt/Comfort, Insecurity, Keith (Voltron) Has Abandonment Issues, Major Character Injury, Multi, Mutual Pining, Not Voltron: Legendary Defender Season/Series 08 Compliant, POV Allura (Voltron), POV Keith (Voltron), Post-Season/Series 07, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-17
Updated: 2018-12-17
Packaged: 2019-09-21 00:28:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 14,818
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17032815
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theprimrosepath/pseuds/theprimrosepath
Summary: Finally, Keith is back with the team. Everything can return to how it used to be.Except when they weren't looking, things changed. Allura and Lance find themselves on infuriating tenterhooks with Keith, and their stand-off crosses paths with invitations to a ball from one of the final holdouts of the Fire of Purification.





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> would you believe i started writing this because of season 8 anxiety last week and have yet to see a single second of it? i've been in suspense this entire weekend pounding out this monster as fast as possible, and thank god, it's done.
> 
> note: some of this fic was originally conceptualized as whump. there's a nasty wound inflicted near the end of the first chapter that continues to be featured in the next. it's not super graphic, but it's there.

Only two hours awake, and the day has already soured.

"Lance," Keith says flatly. "It's the morning of. This isn't a debate anymore. We're going."

The team are all sitting around the breakfast table this morning at eight o'clock sharp, as is custom on a mission day—except now that Earth is saved and the Coalition is shoring up power in spades, some of the missions have become a bit different from what they're accustomed to.

The tension, too, is a recent redevelopment.

"Well, we shouldn't," Lance snaps back, mouth still half-full of the goo they've fallen back on to preserve rations. "It's vargas out of Coalition borders, there's going to be Purification soldiers everywhere, and you want us to leave the Lions planets away."

"Yes. We've discussed this already."

Lance's expression gets piqued at the pointed tone. Out of the corner of his eye, Keith sees Pidge's laser-focus on her orange holopad increase tenfold, while Hunk slumps and eats his goo with renewed vigor. He imagines Coran slipping out of the room behind him.

Across the table by Lance's side, Allura glares at him with half-furious, half-pleading irritation.

 _What are you looking at me for, it's not my boyfriend who keeps starting bullshit,_ Keith thinks resentfully and ignores her. "Even if General Unrok tries something, we've planned for the eventuality. Our Lions can get there in minutes."

"Yeah, because a thousand things totally can't happen within minutes."

"Lance," Keith bites. "Just shut up already."

Lance's jaw goes slack, and he drops his spoon. "Um, _excuse me?_ "

At that tone, Pidge scrunches up in her chair and slaps her palms over her ears. Hunk is already wincing preemptively.

"Yeah," Keith says, his insides boiling. "Excuse you. I'm the leader. We're going to the ball. That's that."

"You—you—" Lance sputters, face already aflame with fury. Then he stands up, nearly toppling his chair, and leans over the table to spit, "You quiznaking carrion crow! It's such an obvious trap, we'll be sitting ducks, and you're not even listening to me!"

When he jabs a finger toward Keith's chest, Keith catches his wrist.

His grip is tighter than he meant it to be, judging by the flash of pain on his face that Lance doesn't quite manage to hide. But Keith, too pissed and too bitter in turn, can't bring himself to regret it very much. "I know it's a trap, Lance. God, you really think I'm that much of an idiot?"

"You're definitely acting like one."

"What the fuck does it take for you to just trust me? I thought we were over this," Keith snaps.

Lance glowers, gaze dark, and rips his hand out of Keith's slackened grip. "I thought we were over this, too."

Without another word, Lance stomps out of the room, leaving behind his half-finished bowl of goo. Keith stares out the door after him with exasperation stewing in his blood and something undefinable twisting tight in his chest. He doesn't even blink at the sound of chair legs squealing.

"Well." Pidge's voice is snippy. "I'm eating the rest of this in my room."

She strides past without a glance back, and Keith finally breaks his stare to rub his temples with a snarl.

"I agree that we should go," Allura says from behind. He turns in a whirl to look at her, but her expression is oppressively flinty. "This invitation is a test. If we don't go, we'll alienate the Jenis for spurning one of their most important social events of the decaphoeb, and the Fire of Purification will have the right to label us cowards. For the Galra, that's a grave fault. Lance hasn't realized that yet."

Keith hesitates, ill with relief. "Allura—"

"But," she interrupts, and there's the disgust. The thing in Keith's chest returns to twisting. "I agree with Lance. You're being an insufferable, quiznaking idiot."

She tosses her empty bowl into the sink and leaves.

Keith stares after her as he did Lance, then eventually looks at the last person still in the room.

Grimly, Hunk meets his eyes and swallows goo. "I've tried to talk to Lance for you, I'm trying to believe you didn't magically turn into a jerk when I wasn't looking, but you're really, _really_ not helping. What's going on?"

"Nothing."

Hunk's responding look of disbelief could have turned Medusa to stone.

Keith drags a hand through his hair, touches at the scar at his cheek. "Look. This is how it was always going to be. Lance and I never got along before, it was never going to be all sunshine and roses just because I'm piloting Black and he's in Red. He's the one who starts everything, anyway. I don't have any problems with him. As long as we can still form Voltron, does it matter?"

"We haven't exactly tried in a while," Hunk points out. Which is true. Nothing has required Voltron since... well, since before the last time he and Lance talked a month ago.

When he broke the news of _him and Allura_ , and Keith couldn't even tolerate Lance in his room at that point. As if he couldn't have noticed by that point how much time the two were spending together on their own, the smiles and whispers they exchanged only for each other, ghosting hands that were never quite so close before he left—

He wants to scoff at the memory of Lance interrupting his day for _that_. As if it's his business to be bothered about who's dating who.

Except it does. It bothers him a lot.

"I don't want to tell you how to do your job," Hunk says after another swallow of goo. "So speaking as a friend. Lance really is upset by all this, you know."

"Really? I couldn't guess."

"Keith," Hunk says plainly.

Keith glances away, brushing at the scar again. "Sorry."

Hunk eats another bite of his breakfast, clearly intent on forcing Keith to impatiently await judgment. Or maybe he's just giving them both a breather and wants to finish his meal. Either way, Keith gets up with a sigh to grab Lance's bowl alongside his and take them to the sink. He's scraped out the last of Lance's goo into the bin and begun scrubbing when Hunk speaks again.

"I know it's been, like, two years for you? But it was only a few months for us. We missed you." Hunk's spoon clinks. "Ugh, how do I say this... Before you left. I know you and Allura and Lance were becoming something."

Keith's hands slow in the suds.

Ha. Becoming something. The thing was, he expected it all to last.

His voice comes out stony. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Just that you guys were getting close," Hunk rushes to say, but there's a sharpness of focus Keith picks up to the tone, like a hunting dog who has caught a scent. His shoulders stiffen and brace for the impact of teeth. "I mean, Lance would even blow off video game time with me and Pidge to talk to you two."

"We were probably discussing strategy," Keith says to the soapy bowls.

Of course they did. They discussed other things, too: things of homes, of flying, of photographs in the desert dusk and silly stories from the strange amalgamate of their lives that they would tear up from in laughter.

Sometimes they'd eat at the same time, and Lance would steal goo from Keith's bowl when he wasn't looking but then Allura would steal from Lance's. Once, Coran ran in after hearing the crash of a toppling chair to find the three of them giggling on the floor and covered in goo. Sure, they were soldiers in a war. But they were also kids, and maybe friends.

 _Maybe,_ he thought when Allura gifted him a camera the day his birthday came—something _Lance_ had calculated, just because he'd wanted to. _Maybe,_ when he took his first photo in almost a year of the team under colorful streamers and confetti, then snapped a hundred more.

 _Maybe,_ when the three of them were the last to linger in the party remains. They hugged and sat by the wall and talked about frivolous things until warm silence blanketed them, and at some point they'd started leaning against each other without pulling away.

Keith gave everyone photos over the next few days and pinned up some of the copies above his desk. _Maybe,_ when he kept two to himself in one of his drawers: Lance and Allura chatting with drinks, and Lance and Allura giggling as she wiped cake frosting from the corner of his mouth. Maybe more.

Only his mom knows he had those. Watched him slide them gently inside, in the strange visions of the quantum abyss. Watched him try to sketch that night in his hidden drawing book, alongside all his other scribbles of their journey so far—and of Lance, and of Allura.

Watched him pack them all, too, when Shiro came back and Keith left the team for the last time.

He left them at the Blade headquarters before he went to Ranveig's base. He doesn't know where they are now. Probably in ashes.

"Lance would never blow off video games for just work," Hunk says, and there's the teeth.

Keith grimaces and is glad that Hunk can't see.

"What I mean to say is," Hunk continues, "do you not think that Lance and Allura missed you?"

"They sure don't act like it," Keith mutters, without really meaning to.

"You don't, either."

With tense hands, Keith rinses off the soap from the bowls—his, Lance's, and Allura's. The tightness is back to wringing in his chest. "I don't want to talk about this anymore."

"Keith, that's the problem. If you guys just talked—"

"I said I don't want to talk about this," Keith snaps, successfully to silence. He pinches the bridge of his nose with wet fingers, takes a deep, calming breath, and says quieter, "I'm sorry. But I really, really don't want to talk about this. Please?"

He dries the bowls in silence and spoon clinks.

Eventually, though, Hunk still breaks the reprieve. "Is this... still about what happened when we were floating in space?"

"Hunk," Keith warns.

"I know you don't want to talk about it. So I'll just talk to myself. You can ignore me, if you want." When Keith doesn't object immediately, Hunk keeps talking. "We were all so tired, it's kind of hard for me to remember the details. But you lashed out at Allura. And Lance. And me, when I tried to stop you guys. There were... hurtful things exchanged. And I know we're all acting like that didn't mean anything, because none of us were in our right minds, but that's not really true, is it?"

Keith stacks the bowls back in the cabinet with his lips pressed together. There's a reason it was Lance who talked to him in his room, and never Allura.

They've both been avoiding each other.

"I remember," Hunk says quietly, "that you were the one trying the hardest to keep us calm, until I talked about leaving Voltron."

The thing in Keith's chest twists tighter and sinks. "Hunk, are you done?"

"Not yet. Just that, um, as the resident leg who doesn't have to recuse themself from all this... If we had to form Voltron now, I don't think it would work." Hunk gentles his tone, softening his next words. "You three arguing is tearing all of us apart. I know you're the leader here, but I'm just saying—I don't want us to risk the universe like this."

Keith turns to look at Hunk with a bit of a crooked smile and says, "I meant your bowl, Hunk."

"Oh." Hunk's chuckle is embarrassed. "I can wash it myself, it's fine." As if to insist that Keith not wait around, he buries his spoon into the last of his goo and sticks it unceremoniously into his mouth.

Keith feels his smile get a little more genuine.

"You're probably right," he says.

Hunk pauses. "Mfhm?"

Keith glances to the side and picks at his scar. "It's too dangerous to assume that we'll still be able to form Voltron next time. I'll... try to talk to Lance or Allura tomorrow, once the ball's over and done with. Maybe figure out how to get us living in some kind of equilibrium again."

For some reason, Hunk's face scrunches up at that, but he swallows and says, "Okay."

———

Keith stares into his mirror and fidgets angrily with the tie.

He doesn't understand why the Jenis can't just consider their armor as formal wear enough, but apparently the Undine Festival Ball can't be tarnished by the presence of war or something like that. That's the first reason why they can't land their Lions on or near the planet.

(They also happen to have a strict 'no pet' policy, so Cosmo is helping his mom on a mission right now.)

The other reason is the polite threats of the local Fire of Purification faction, who are 'considering' a union with the Coalition and asked for negotiations at the ball. They get to have weapons, sentry soldiers, the works because they were there first, and 'presence of war' to the Jenis apparently means 'implication of conflict.'

 _Considering_ , his ass. Under any other scenario, Keith would agree wholeheartedly with Lance. This is a blatant trap.

But being the leader means considering a lot more than one angle. Shiro tried to teach him that—to little success if the first time he took over the mantle of Black Lion proved anything. Instead, it took a thousand mistakes, his whole team in danger, and Lance—

Keith shuts down that train of thought. He takes a breath, then returns to looking at the mirror.

The Jenis were colonized by the Galra Empire only a handful of centuries ago, with cooperation from the higher echelons of their society. Zarkon grew more lax in his policies of oppression near the end, it seems, or maybe he was just comfortable in his near-absolute stranglehold on quintessence and military might.

Either way, the ball's dress code still accommodates guest differences in culture (minus the armor). Being from Earth, well...

It was Shiro who took pity on him. Keith isn't exactly experienced with anything besides t-shirts, jeans, and Garrison uniforms, and Shiro knows that. Shopping for Earth fashion, after three years in space and an alien invasion, was surreal.

In one of the dressing rooms, too, Shiro said, "I heard about Lance and Allura."

Keith, already reaching for one of the shirts, yanked it on faster than lightning in some (admittedly ridiculous) attempt to get Shiro to understand that _he did not want to talk about that_.

He knows Shiro could guess, so the man deliberately ignored his wishes to continue. "I don't know what's... happening between you guys. But it's showing in your performance. I and everyone on the Atlas has noticed something's up."

Keith swiped at his mussed hair. "Talking behind our backs?"

"Keith."

Keith pulled down on the shirt hem a bit harder than necessary. "Sorry. I just don't know what you expect me to say. Yes?"

"Maybe a bit more than that." Shiro handed him a jacket, frowning. "Teams have to get along to work smoothly, especially your team. But more importantly, Keith, you need friends."

"Not this again."

"It's not as if it's my fault that I have to bring it up so often," Shiro replies mildly.

Keith scowls and yanks on the jacket. "This has nothing to do with me needing friends, Shiro. We're just having a bit of a hiccup. From me leaving the team and coming back a few months later being two years older. And, you know, recovering from the stress of Earth's invasion."

Shiro's look of doubt is profound.

"Really," Keith insists.

Shiro sighs. "Whatever you say. Take that jacket off—it makes you look like a vampire with a tiny head." To Keith's great relief, he abstained from that topic for the rest of the day.

The fabric of the suit Shiro eventually approved is a red so dark it's almost black, with a glossy woven-in pattern of what Shiro called paisleys on the jacket. He's unsure about the way the paisleys shimmer when he turns—it feels attention-grabbing—but Keith trusts Shiro's taste in fashion much more than he does his own.

His shoes are black, as well as his dress shirt and tie. The tie also has a glossy pattern, but in zig-zags. Not much to say there, really.

Shiro's just wearing a plain old black and white tuxedo to the ball, dull silver cufflinks and all, which Keith got aggrieved about. Apparently, being the pilot of the Black Lion deserves a bit more sparkle than the ex-pilot and now captain of the IGF-Atlas.

To reassure himself, Keith finds the snug bracelets on his wrists, invisible beneath his clothes.

Yesterday, Allura and Coran showed them how parts of the Paladin armor could be detached and reformed to the wearer's needs. The Jenis said no weapons, but well, as if they could expect a Paladin to ever go anywhere without their bayard and shield. Maybe with luck, they wouldn't have to reveal them.

Ha. Blatant trap, indeed.

Keith checks the time. Still ten minutes until they're all supposed to meet in the Lions hangar.

Well, shouldn't the leader be early?

———

He hardly languishes a minute in the hanger, hands shoved into his pockets, before the others begin to trickle in.

Hunk first, to Keith's pleasant surprise. The beaming smile and the sunny yellow bowtie are the first things he sees, and Hunk gives him a curious but delighted once-over. "Don't tell me you've been hiding a sense of fashion from us this entire time," he says.

Keith shakes his head, already smiling. Hunk does that to him. "Shiro helped."

Hunk nods sagely.

Finally, Keith manages to take in a matching handkerchief to the bowtie, a bright contrast against Hunk's charcoal black jacket. The rest of his ensemble is light-colored, white dress shirt to gray vest and pants, and apparently Keith really shouldn't expect anyone else on the team to have a comparable ability to dress themselves. Hunk looks great, and he says so.

"Thanks," Hunk replies with a grin. "You, too."

They chatter for a bit about what Shiro's wearing. Hunk is just as aggrieved by the news but for different reasons. In the interim, somehow Pidge sneaks up on them; Keith glances to the side and nearly jumps at the familiar mane of hair where there was once empty space.

"Shiro's wearing a tux?" she asks. "Dang, same. One of us is gonna have to change."

Hunk covers his mouth and snickers.

Keith purses his lips. "That's not... a tuxedo, Pidge."

Pidge raises her eyebrows up at him and crosses her arms, stance firm. She's wearing a t-shirt stylized as a tuxedo, with plain black jeans and a green flower pin in her hair the size of one of her glasses lenses to hold back some of her errant bangs. Somehow, it works with her armor bracelets to make them look like regular jewelry.

"Not like anyone there's gonna know the difference," she says.

Keith opens his mouth, furrows his brow, and concedes with reluctance, "I guess so."

"Also, I'm still not talking to you," Pidge adds, turning around to face Hunk so her back's to Keith, "until you stop being such a jerk. Capiche?"

"Uh," Keith says.

"Huh? Is there a fly in the room or something? I hear buzzing," Pidge says.

Keith sighs.

Hunk grimaces sympathetically at Keith over her head.

Pidge begins badgering Hunk for conversation about engineering projects this and Coalition science experiments that, and with brief hesitation he obliges. Keith resigns himself to listening, both because of Pidge's snub and because the extent of his tech-savviness only goes as far as cameras, hoverbikes, and aircraft.

 _You three arguing is tearing all of us apart,_ Hunk said. But he and Pidge jabber away now about the collaborations between Olkari and Earth scientists that have everyone waiting for reports with bated breath. Their shoulders are relaxed in their excitement, no tension at all. Pidge is in firm opposition to Keith's behavior, while Hunk has balanced himself neatly in the middle as spokesperson and friend.

Lance and Allura still aren't here. Keith can't help but imagine where they must be. In one of their rooms, probably, talking as easily and eagerly as the two in front of him about something inane, like what the party food might be.

Lance would button up his shirt praying aloud that the Jenis would have the decency to serve _something_ recognizable as food; Allura would roll her eyes up to her half-done hair and not-so-gently point out that she's tried many human dishes that were quite unrecognizable to her, and perhaps Lance should put some of the food where his foot is (coincidentally, his mouth) before he slips up in front of a Jeni and causes a diplomatic disaster. At some point, Lance would joke about the party not starting until he gets there and bet on how quickly he'd get girls hanging off his arm—

Except he and Allura are dating.

No, Lance wouldn't make that joke.

Maybe Lance is talking about the food while zipping up Allura's dress. Maybe Allura dryly chides him while adjusting the tie on his neck. Maybe the joke Lance makes is about how many men Allura will get hanging off her arm by the end of the night, and Allura laughs and says that she'd only string them along for politics' sake anyway, and then she kisses him.

Every inch of Keith aches with want and jealousy to the bone. The worst part is, he doesn't know who he's more jealous of.

Hunk is wrong. The rest of the team is sticking together just fine. The only person being torn apart is Keith, and really, that's exactly why he's been doing this.

He stands there, too distracted to hear Hunk or Pidge anymore or take note of the other people that have begun arriving, until someone claps a hand on his shoulder. Keith starts.

It's Shiro in his tuxedo, frowning. "Hey, Keith. You okay? Everyone's here."

Keith mentally shakes himself and mutters, "Yeah, I'm fine," reflexively brushing Shiro's hand from his shoulder.

He looks around. Shiro's right—all of the attendees have arrived, the leaders from the Coalition planets meant to represent the Coalition at large. Their styles of dress are far more varied than Earth's, so Keith forgoes curiosity in favor of placing person with detail so he can isolate them from a crowd later.

While he was distracted, Pidge and Hunk drifted away closer to the group. Keith spots them talking to Lance and Allura.

He swallows. Lance's tie and cummerbund are a rich ocean blue, brilliant against the white floral print of his shirt and the dark blue of a suit that teeters on the edge of violet. They bring out the blue of his eyes—especially now, him laughing hard at whatever joke Hunk just told him.

Allura... Keith can only assume that they found a tailor somewhere to modify a dress for her, because the style is entirely Altean and she _sparkles_. Crystals bead the soft pink fabric and thread her hair through locks and braids, gleaming and shimmering. A blue cape ghosts her heels, and white loops of fabric hang from her biceps and wrists; the armor bracelets disappear beneath them.

Her arm is settled comfortably in Lance's.

He looks away and stops trying to draw them in his mind. They look great. Especially together.

"You good?" Shiro murmurs out of the corner of his mouth. He doesn't touch Keith this time.

Keith sighs. "Yeah."

With a reassuring nod from Shiro, Keith finds the small aerial work platform they've used as a mock podium before and lifts himself up a couple feet into the air. "All right, everyone, listen up!" he shouts.

The hangar quiets. He catches sight of his team's steady gazes and has to quell the responding wave of anxiety.

"All of you should have been debriefed already on how this ball is gonna go," Keith says, loud enough for his words to echo slightly, "but we're gonna review a few of the details again and then get everyone organized to head out.

"We're headed onto a Purification-occupied planet with nothing but a handful of our ships and the Lions left a few doboshes away. So everyone needs to be hyperaware of their surroundings as soon as we land on Jenis. Make sure you stay within sight of your assigned Paladin. Don't let any non-Coalition member take you where we can't see you. We'll be the ones keeping watch for the entire evening and making sure everyone stays safe. Please raise a hand or arm if you've been assigned to Lance."

A couple of the attendees raise their hands. Out of the corner of his eye, Keith sees Lance's gaze darting and hardening on each in memorization.

"Lance, please wave." When he does, Keith says, "That's Lance. You'll be boarding his Lion and staying close to him."

Keith repeats the process with each Paladin, finishing with himself. "All right, that's it. Please go meet with your assigned Paladin. We'll be heading out in a couple doboshes."

He lowers the platform. Shiro, as one of his charges for the evening, has already strode over.

"You've grown a lot. Why are you so worried about being good enough?" he murmurs.

Keith flinches, then flushes at his own reaction. "Where did you get the idea that I was even thinking about that?"

Shiro's smile is fond. "I've known you since you were a kid. Don't forget; you stole my car."

Keith splutters in confusion, because what does his childhood attempt at grand theft auto have to do with anything? But his other charges come into earshot before he can manage a reply.

And, true to form, Shiro's words circle unsettlingly in his thoughts for the entire trip to Jenis.

———

The Undine Festival Ball is a whirl of colors and different pitches of chatter.

Keith almost forgot, after having been AWOL in the quantum abyss for two years, how horrendous huge social events were. At this rate, he's going to get a headache within the hour, and barely anyone has yet to try to talk to him.

His charges at least have kept to orders and remained in sight. Though the number of Galra sentries lining the walls probably help.

It's intimidating. Even as Keith circles lazily around his people with an untouched drink in his hand, feigning at all the ease he can manage, he can't stop glancing at the walls and doorways where sentries stand sentinel in spades. The crowd of partygoers, too, includes a dozen dolled-up Galra officers.

They're completely surrounded, and the fact has every hair on the back of Keith's neck standing on end. He regrets coming here.

 _Hope you're satisfied, Lance,_ he thinks sourly, pretending to sip at his glass. The orange liquid smells like lemon-scented cleaner. _You were right._

During his last pass around, Keith spotted the local commander of the Purification forces—General Unrok, in a very ornamented set of armor. At her waist, proudly displayed, are two strapped-on, shattered luxite hilts. Even remembering the sight boils Keith's blood until he almost sees red. No wonder his mom and Kolivan hate her guts. It's a good thing neither of them were invited.

She's the one the Coalition are supposed to be negotiating with later tonight. Keith expects nothing less but subterfuge out of her.

He passes around again and glimpses an uncomfortably familiar Coalition leader talking to one of his. Before he can place exactly why, he slips between two chatting circles of guests and almost runs straight into Allura.

She freezes as Keith catches himself with a stumble. Drops spill threateningly from his glass.

"Uh," he says.

Ah. _That's_ why.

He tries again. "Uh, hi, Allura."

"Keith," she says.

They stare at each other.

Under the gentle ballroom lights, she looks radiant. But her face... Keith swallows and touches the scar on his face.

He can't tell what expression Allura's wearing. He used to be able to tell—so well, he knew when a day was bad for her the way days were bad for him for years after his dad died.

He'd pull her into a room where they could be alone, because Allura was always self-conscious about the weakness of others noticing her distress—which she never called so in so many words but thought it was nonetheless. The first time, she tried to brush off his concern with a laugh. But he told her about his dad, and by the end, her eyes were wet.

He offered her a hug. He did that every bad day after. Almost every time, she said yes.

Lance got good at noticing, too, after Keith first caught him on such a day and asked for his help; he was much better at talking to distract than Keith was. Still is.

But now it's been two years and change. A lot of change. For them both, even if it was only months for Allura.

Keith looks away first, unable to bear the unfamiliarity. He misses her so much it hurts. "Sorry for almost running into you. I should've been looking. You, uh, look nice."

"Thank you," Allura says, quiet in the noise of the ballroom. "You do, too."

It's so tense.

Keith still hasn't apologized for what he said about her father. God, he comforted her, and he said _that_ like a cruel stab in the back. He almost opens his mouth to do it, right then and there—

But because he's a coward, he says, "I'd better keep walking. You should, too."

The area around Allura's eyes tighten, and something in Keith's chest twists in response.

"Lance wants to talk to you," she says.

Keith blinks. Did he mishear that?

"What?" he asks.

"Lance wants to talk to you," she repeats. And oh, something in her expression is softening, he can still recognize _that_ at least. Even if the air between them is still as strained as load-bearing wire. "I do, too, but he called dibs first."

"Oh."

"Don't expect it to be an apology from _us_ ," she says. The cold flintiness from that morning glints in her eyes again. "But we do need to talk. No matter what you might believe, Keith, we don't want to lose your friendship. Lance should be close to the bar."

Allura offers him a half-moon quirk of the lips, then brushes past.

Keith stares through the throng of partygoers at nothing, then down at the floor. A couple drops of his nearly-spilled drink gleam there.

Lance, by the bar.

 _We don't want to lose your friendship._ Implying that under the right circumstances, they might eventually. Might give up on him.

His stomach churns.

But he told Hunk he would do this. Today is just as good as tomorrow.

———

Keith makes another round first, because the bar is a little out of the way of where he's been keeping watch on his assigned guests. None of them will be in easy visibility while he's talking to Lance.

He catches sight of Shiro and stops. General Unrok is talking to him.

Without thinking, he turns and walks toward them. Every single alarm bell in his head is ringing.

Shiro looks decently at ease on the surface, but Keith can see the tension coiled tight in his shoulders. General Unrok has aggressively placed herself a few inches into his personal space, and apparently whatever she's saying does little to reassure him. The fingers of his prosthetic are flexing as if tempted to light up.

The sight of her towering over Shiro reminds Keith of Sendak, about to strike the final blow, and Keith walks faster.

No one is hurting Shiro again if he can help it.

"Really, all your Coalition leaders," General Unrok is saying—he can hear her low, slithering voice now. "Like little, presumptuous flies. They are quite lucky they have your soldiers in their service."

"Not my soldiers," Shiro replies, pasted smile pleasant. "They're very much their own soldiers."

General Unrok waves a dismissive hand. "The idealism is unnecessary. Really, quite counterproductive. Past a certain point, independent thought hinders the rest of us. Leadership is necessary to keep the gears well-oiled."

"You think leadership demands blind servitude?"

"What is the point of leadership if loyalty is undemanded?" she counters. "Too many self-important minds derail the machine. There is a greater purpose to be served."

"Hopefully," Shiro says, "you might consider _our_ mission to be that greater purpose."

General Unrok chuckles. "I would prefer to discuss that possibility with whoever is the true leader."

Keith stalks right up to them. The shattered luxite blades are still strapped to her waist. "Hi," he says. "You must be looking for me."

Shiro whirls to look at him. " _Keith._ "

"I'm the pilot of the Black Lion and the leader of Voltron." Keith ignores Shiro's wide, horrified eyes and proffers his hand to the general. "Nice to meet you, General Unrok. I've heard a lot about you."

She glances at his hand with a raised eyebrow. "Assuming us to be equals?"

"We're both leaders." Keith is smiling with teeth. "Aren't we?"

She snorts and roughly shakes his hand.

"Keith," Shiro says carefully. "Any negotiations are supposed to be done after the ball, by the Coalition committee. Voltron doesn't have the authority to make these decisions."

"Nonsense," General Unrok scoffs. The glow of quintessence usage makes her eyes unreadable. "The Coalition is little else but a bundle of gears pretending at being an engine. Voltron is the true power behind the Coalition's bluster. Really, I could not be any less interested in another conversation partner."

Keith can feel the heat of Shiro's anger, even hidden beneath the surface as it is. But he can't bring himself to feel bad about this.

"Sounds fantastic," he says.

"Then I'm staying right here," Shiro retorts, tone firm as the Earth. "Keith doesn't know all the details we wanted to negotiate."

General Unrok clucks and shakes her head. "Oh, no. I can sense your lack of respect."

Shiro stiffens.

A long time ago, Keith would have disagreed vehemently with General Unrok. But two years in the quantum abyss meant a lot of looking back on the past. He knows that Shiro, even if that Shiro wasn't exactly _his_ Shiro, undermined him repeatedly. Moreover, Keith _let_ him—it was instinct, bolstered by a whole lot of insecurity, to have Shiro lead him, even when it was Keith in the leader's chair and Shiro backseat driving.

In the past two months, Shiro hasn't pestered him an ounce about his leadership from the Atlas. But Keith can't know whether he'd still be so comfortable if Shiro could still fly the Black Lion, or if General Unrok will smell blood if Shiro stays and Keith lets him inform too many of his decisions.

Keith trusts Shiro with... really, with everything. That's part of the problem.

But if there's one thing Shiro has tried to instill in him again and again, it's been to trust himself. Shiro ought to start trusting Keith, too.

"It'll be fine, Shiro," he says, still facing the general. "Trust me. You should go check on the others."

There's a hiss of an exhale. "Keith—"

"Shiro," Keith interrupts. At this rate, Shiro _will_ weaken his authority. Then the general won't talk to anyone, and the ball will be a bust.

Shiro seems to hear that in the sharpness of Keith's tone, or maybe he's just realized what he's doing on his own. Shiro puts a hand on his shoulder for a moment—the prosthetic, though Keith derives no less strength from it—and says, "All right."

The sound of Shiro's departing footsteps rings in his ears.

And then there are two.

General Unrok smiles at him with a challenging sliver of her fangs. Keith can't do anything else but return it.

"We should talk somewhere less distracting," she suggests lightly.

———

They find a narrow hall branching off of the main ballroom.

Keith plants his feet as soon as they pass the archway of the hall. No matter what Lance implied, he is not idiotic enough to go out of sight with the general of this swath of Purification territory. She seems amused when he doesn't follow further but obliges him.

"What do you think of the Coalition?" she asks first.

"What kind of answer do you expect me to give?"

"A real one." General Unrok's stance is wide, hands on her waist—gloved fingers covering the luxite blades. "Claim equality, demand honesty. I would hear what so appeals to you and yours of the Coalition."

Keith's hand goes to his scar.

This feels like both a challenge and a trap. Say the right things, and she might respect them enough to join them. Say anything remotely wrong, and she has all the excuse she needs to dismiss them like the presumptuous flies she compared them to.

But Keith has always worked best under pressure.

"The Coalition are what they are," he says. "A group of leaders who found Zarkon wanting. He never understood the most important thing about leading: you have to have people to lead. He destroyed planets, abused civilizations. You can't demand loyalty with mistreatment."

General Unrok hums, a considering sound. "He was a purist when it came to punishment. I would not presume he lacked reason."

"Reason doesn't come into it. Power is a two-way street. You only get as much power as people give you. Zarkon lost his right to it as soon as he started hurting his people."

"Indeed, you have made your displeasure with him quite clear."

Zarkon dead, his Empire dismantled piece by piece, and the remnants of his loyal officers reduced to scavenging for scraps while the Coalition beats them into surrender one by one. Yeah, their displeasure is clear.

"But there are sources of power that don't derive from people," General Unrok continues. "The Voltron Lions are a blatant example."

Keith hesitates. "They're definitely unusual," he hedges.

Her glowing eyes settle on him with a thin smile. "Really, the Black Lion was a formidable sight once upon a time."

 _Once upon a time_? He wants to bristle at the insult, but there's a less incendiary meaning there he can focus on. "You were around when the Lions were under Zarkon's command?"

"A mere foot soldier at the time." She gestures at her eyes. "Quite afield from that station now. There is reason that so many of us were content for so long to remain cogs in his machine. Zarkon knew well how to lead. Even if he grew less... capable over time. Tell me. What _truly_ impresses you about the Coalition?"

Keith's brow furrows. "What do you mean?"

"Why remain content as a cog in _their_ machine?"

"I told you already. They have the right understanding about how to lead people."

"I disagree. Really, I'm not sure you do either, little leader."

Keith tenses. "What makes you think I'm wrong?"

"There is one lesson all leaders understand." General Unrok takes a small step closer. "The frivolous are followers."

The noise of the ball is far to his back. The general's height, which made her tower over Shiro, looms like a mountain compared to Keith. Unprompted, the armor bracelets under his sleeves thrum with a reminder of his bayard's presence. "The frivolous?"

"Most people. Your Coalition. So focused on silly, individual wants. Vision surpasses them. Leaders understand that they must subdue those base desires to achieve something greater. Valuing the individual," she scoffs. "Really. Like encouraging a warship to fall apart. Your claim to leadership is frail, pilot of the Black Lion, to let your power dissipate instead of use it."

"Your opinion on how to use power doesn't hold much water to me," Keith snaps.

"As if holding water means much."

One of General Unrok's hands goes to her waist and unstraps a shattered luxite blade. She flourishes it in front of Keith with a narrow, inspective gaze. The cracked sigil on the hilt flickers minutely, and Keith has to force himself to stiffen lest he snatch it out of her grasp.

"Listen well. A leader finds little use for independence. We all must serve purpose. For purpose to serve us... then, there is no purpose at all. Only chaos and energy left to meaningless pursuits." General Unrok leans in close. "Another secret of ours: leaders understand to sacrifice their own desires, too, in serving purpose. Unloosed distractions make it easier to see. Your Blades learned that quickly."

Keith sees red.

The next second, he's holding his bayard to the chink beneath her breastplate, the blade shrunken to nearly a knifepoint.

General Unrok's glowing eyes widen, and Keith bares his teeth. "You want to see me use my power?" he sneers.

She takes a step back, and Keith's blade follows.

"You've never had friends, have you?" Keith asks, his voice and blood boiling cold. Something crooked in his chest slides back into place with his words—and finally, something feels right. "Never cared about anyone else except yourself and your _purpose_ , because they're _distractions_. Well, guess what? It's not me who's the weak one here."

He digs the point of his bayard into the padding beneath General Unrok's plate. She steps back further, trying to escape the reach of his blade, and he presses on.

It's a dance of threat, and Keith is winning.

"You said the Voltron Lions are a power that doesn't come from people," he hisses, "but the Lions can't do anything without their pilots. And their pilots can't do anything if they don't care about each other. King Alfor made the Lions to help his friend. Their first purpose was to save a planet and bring the same peace to the universe that the Coalition is trying to do now."

One day, his friends are going to leave.

One day, they'll grow tired of Voltron, of sacrificing their lives to a duty they never asked for, and go home.

This is what Keith has been thinking: he doesn't have a home to go back to. He doesn't have anything on Earth left waiting for him, and no other purpose anymore except Voltron. Shiro will never fly a Lion again. His mom will never stop traveling the universe saving all the people she can. When his team leaves, they will leave him alone.

Except—maybe he does have a home. Maybe there will be people out there waiting for him, and their home will be his.

Maybe his team will grow tired of Voltron, one day. But that doesn't mean they'll ever want to grow tired of _him_. Maybe Keith should stop trying to make them tired.

"You ask why I don't take over the Coalition? Because this _is_ my purpose," he snarls. "Helping the 'frivolous' people I love. Believe it or not, General Unrok, that kind of passion gives you more power, not less."

General Unrok stares down at him, eyes still wide—

And she grabs his wrist with her free hand, squeezing tight. Keith gasps.

"Silly child," she says, and twists his hand until he's forced to drop his bayard. She kicks it with a foot, sending it sliding down the hall.

The hall. Oh, no.

"You were right about Zarkon," General Unrok murmurs. They're much farther down the hall now, during her ploy of backing away. Far out of sight of the main party. "One pleasure he could never quite learn to let go of was pride."

God, his wrist. Keith can feel the bones grinding and giving under her grip.

"Passion is power, true," she tells him. "But—"

Keith summons a shield to the wrist she's holding, ripping away her hand and slamming her aside. His wrist screams under the new weight, but he walls off the pain for long enough to summon his bayard back to his hand. It shifts into its full blade, violet glow luminous.

"Shut up already," he gasps.

The general's laugh is as crisp as a bell tone. From her hip, she summons a short sword and says, "Attack now, soldiers."

Keith drops into a defensive stance, raising his sword and shield. But no one else appears.

Thuds. Behind him, distant people begin screaming.

Oh, no.

"Ensure you target the man with the right prosthetic arm first," General Unrok adds.

_Shiro._

Keith whirls toward the ballroom. _No._ He drops the agonizing shield to run—

Something grabs him by the upper arm and pulls him back, ripping him nearly off his feet. And then there's searing pain, so violent that he screams and curls into himself as General Unrok yanks away her short sword from her slash across his abdomen.

He collapses to the floor. Drops of his blood splash down in front of him from her blade.

"Passion is power, little leader," the general says again, above him. "But perilous to place that passion in things so easily destroyed. Really, didn't King Alfor himself learn that lesson so many years ago?"

Keith gasps. His bayard—

His hand tightens on the grip and twitches. But his legs won't respond. Oh god, the pain.

General Unrok is still speaking. He thinks. The sounds are smearing. He can't see.

_Shiro._

Pain explodes in his chest, and Keith heaves a ragged yell. Abruptly, everything sharpens until he can see General Unrok pulling away her foot. She towers over him, satisfaction coloring what he can make out of her face.

He can feel _it_. Like when he fought Shiro.

"Ah, there," she says. "Really, I almost thought you a full human regardless."

The pain is still there in full force, but less immediate somehow. Keith groans, scrabbling at the floor, but feels something viscerally _wrong_ shift inside him when he tries to turn to get on his hands and knees.

Inside. Outside?

He can see something white and smeared with blood under the torn fabric of his shirt.

Summon the Black Lion. He tries to focus, but he can't tell if he's reached her.

"Human fragility," the general mutters. "Those reports did not exaggerate. But I have respect enough to give you some dignity. Fall with your ship. Die as a Galra."

Dignity?

Keith wheezes a bitter laugh that crumples at the end. Stabbing pain in his gut.

He puts a hand over the wound. Starts just below his right ribs... continues left and angles down. There's a lot of warm blood, and something soft that his every nerve ending is telling him should be inside. That's... definitely bad. He presses down, trying to stem the blood flow, but it hurts so much he stops with a gasp.

When he looks up again, General Unrok is frowning toward the ballroom. "Report," she says—a transceiver on her, somewhere. "What is happening?"

Keith finds his bayard again. He strains his ears. Fewer, different shouts now. What _is_ happening?

General Unrok snarls wordlessly and begins stalking away.

His bayard.

His bloody hand fumbles on the grip. There's no way he can use a sword in this condition. He thinks he wouldn't even be able to throw a knife.

It thrums in understanding. It shifts.

General Unrok is out of sight, but Keith can still hear her footsteps.

He puts his free hand beneath him—hisses as the fragile wrist complains—pushes himself up to near-sitting. His gut throbs in agony, and there's the same terrible sensation of lurching as there was earlier. White and red gleams through the tear in his shirt.

She's halfway down the hall, apparently uncertain.

Keith lifts up his bayard. It's in the shape of a handgun and heavy for his trembling, slippery hand. He itches to pull the trigger before he loses his grip, but he has to aim.

He inhales. Another stab in the gut.

_Patience yields focus._

He shoots.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> shoutout to my friend @penwolfe on tumblr, who was fielding comments from me left and right for this entire writing process and, when i was waffling about pidge's outfit (thinking "idk maybe a two-piece??"), said "tuxedo t-shirt" and made me realize i was a Fool. love her <3


	2. Chapter 2

Allura is on her fourth round about the ballroom after her conversation with Keith. The Jeni economist she's exchanging words with at the moment is annoyingly self-aggrandizing, and she finds herself glancing away and sweating in turn from her efforts to remain polite. Her mother would have been so disappointed.

"Please excuse me," she eventually manages. "This has been greatly illuminating, but, er, I see a colleague I must urgently talk to. Have a good evening!"

She ignores the economist's farewell and strides quickly away. Her thoughts stray.

Has Keith found Lance by the bar yet? Will he even talk to him?

Allura chews her lip. Part of her is still incredibly infuriated with Keith. Ever since he returned to the team, he has been either distant or sharp with them—far more distant with her, far more sharp to Lance.

At first, she somewhat welcomed his avoidance of her. Although she knew Keith wouldn't have said such things in his right mind, she was still smarting over the words he'd hissed at her while adrift in space. He knew of her grief, he had comforted her, she had _confided_ in him— _ugh_. She couldn't even look at him for a time without recalling the knife of bitterness.

The worst pain was to know that Keith must have thought it, once. And instead of apologizing, instead of warming up to them again, he—

Didn't.

Lance was just as upset. He told Keith in a fit of frustration that he and Allura were dating. And Keith got worse.

Yes, part of Allura is so furious that she's sure her anger would light her on fire if it could.

But another part of her just misses Keith terribly. During those months after he left for the Blade of Marmora, something essential seemed carved out of her chest. The absence of his laughter, of the rasp of his voice telling Lance off or making some dry observation, the gentle warmth of his arms... the photographs she pinned to her wall were poor substitutes.

Did he not miss them, too?

Does he even care? Would she and Lance ever be enough?

According to Shiro earlier today, the issue is apparently the entire opposite.

Allura has made it halfway around her circuit, too preoccupied to remember to look for the Coalition leaders she's supposed to be watching, when a cascade of loud bangs startle her to a stop.

She spins. Sentries are slamming doors shut and raising their rifles. Her shield is up before she thinks.

Of course the negotiation was a trap—but sprung while the ball is still ongoing? When nearly every Jeni ally of theirs still remains in the room? Undoubtedly, General Unrok will face severe political loss on this planet.

No time to puzzle over this. She needs to find her charges.

The sentries begin shooting, and people begin screaming. Allura surges through the throngs of panicking guests and tries to pull them aside when she can, urging them towards walls or behind obstructions. In the back of her mind, she sends her thoughts toward the Blue Lion. She needs to arrive, now.

Somewhere distant yet in her chest, she feels the Lion roar. She's coming.

In the maelstrom, Allura picks up her three Coalition leaders. Thankfully, they remained close and found each other first. Keith warned them well.

"Stay close and stay behind me," she instructs over the noise and summons her bayard.

Part of the plan is for the Paladins and the Coalition committee to meet at the front entrance if things go south. Things have gone thoroughly south, so Allura fights through the crowd towards the ornate doors. Every opening she gets, she whips out her bayard to slice through sentries. But there are so many of them.

She's halfway across the ballroom when a Galra Purification officer gets in her way.

"Princess Allura," he drawls, rifle in hand, "plus three. Too bad it's about to be minus four."

She raises her bayard and opens her mouth to retort—

The officer's head snaps forward. He crumples to the floor, revealing Shiro just behind him with his prosthetic arm covered in laser burns, hand curled in a fist, and hovering right where the officer's head was. His right sleeve hangs empty at his side, half-ripped to shreds.

"God, what are you, in elementary school?" Shiro says to the unconscious Galra.

"I had that," Allura says, affronted.

"Sorry, Princess," Shiro replies with a half-moon smile. But it quickly falls. "Have you seen Keith?"

"No."

Shiro's lips thin, and he mutters, "Fuck," quietly enough that she suspects he didn't intend her to hear.

Allura's brow creases as a pang of fear hits. "What is it?"

But then laserfire spits at them, and Allura has to lash her bayard through the air to deflect the bolts from them all. In a split second of pause, she strikes out and shears through the waists of the group of sentries.

"We need to find better cover!" Allura shouts.

Shiro is already glancing around. "There!" he replies, pointing towards one of the adjoining hallways. The archway is empty.

"Perfect," she pants.

It's easier to shove through the crowd now, as the ballroom is thinning from fleeing or fallen guests. The Coalition leaders take shelter farther in the hall while Allura and Shiro take defensive positions just within the archway.

Her voice comes out tense, and more afraid than she wanted it to. "What happened to Keith?"

"He interrupted a conversation between me and General Unrok," Shiro says, shaking his head. "She only cares about leaders, apparently, so he played up his authority so she'd only want to talk to him. They went off somewhere alone." He presses his lips together.

"And you haven't seen him," Allura says, heart climbing up her throat. "I haven't seen him."

Keith has to be okay. If nothing else, he has always been good at taking care of himself. He must be okay. She has to believe that.

They turn their gazes back to the mass of ballroom chaos in time to see the remainder of the Coalition guests flounder out of the panic and towards their archway. The burst of relief in her is quickly followed by alarm as laserfire dogs them through the crowd. She steps out from the archway with shield and bayard to deflect the shots, but they wane before Shiro has even finished ushering everyone inside.

Allura catches sight of bright yellow and blue, and oh, thank the Ancients. She slumps in profound relief as Lance and Hunk appear from the thick with bayards in hand.

Lance is yelling over his shield while Hunk defends, the center of a storm of partygoers. "Everyone get in here!"

Sages, she loves him.

Allura can't keep away her smile as she glances back at Shiro.

Shiro purses his lips, also smiling a bit, and says, "I'll make sure there's enough room in the hall."

———

"Just another second," Pidge reports. "They changed all the names for everything so I've had to improvise."

The Paladins huddle just within the archway of the hall; Shiro is in the back sheltering with the Coalition committee and rescuees as the most reassuring presence of the group. Allura watches Pidge keenly as she taps at the orange holopad in her hands, glasses shining from the device's light.

Lance's back presses firmly against hers. He faces the ballroom along with Hunk, holding off the sentries and remaining Galra officers. On occasion, she can feel the recoil of his rifle.

"This is what you've been working on?" Allura asks, awed.

For the past three days, she recalls seeing Pidge with her nose buried in her holopad at every instance she was out of her room, and likely when she was inside as well. As it isn't an uncommon sight, Allura had little suspicion that it was a project for their future mission—much less an intense dissection of the software of a virtual, modeled Galra sentry.

"Yup. Since, you know, Keith's been such an idiot in the past month that he didn't even think about asking his premier hacker if she could, say, _hack into a bunch of Galra sentries_ ," Pidge says, rolling her eyes, "and make all our jobs a hundred times easier."

"Aren't you not talking to him?"

Pidge waves a hand at her dismissively before quickly returning it to her work. "Eh. Small details. As if Keith isn't supposed to be the humbler, more responsible one of us two, anyway."

Allura's lips turn up. She's not wrong.

Pidge presses another icon and laughs. "There."

She feels as much as hears Lance whoop in exaltation. Most of the laserfire noises stop, and the Galra officers outside begin making confused noises. "Hallelujah!" he shouts. "I could kiss you, Pidge."

"Not in front of the girlfriend," she says, grinning. "Let's see here..."

She taps at her holopad.

Lasers begin firing again, but this time both Hunk and Lance are cackling their heads off.

"Don't worry, I told them to avoid being lethal," Pidge informs Allura. "So barring, say, an accident? We're gonna have a bunch of trussed-up, live Purification officers on our hands soon."

Lance relaxes fully against Allura's back, his hysterical laughter slow to die. It feels good, so she leans back and closes her eyes to better feel his vibrating warmth. The relief in the hall is palpable; she can hear Shiro murmuring the news to the sheltering crowd beyond. "Fantastic job, Pidge. I don't know what we'd do without you."

"Probably die."

Allura feels herself smile wide. "Perhaps."

But there's still a tight, trembling knot of fear in her stomach. Keith has yet to appear.

"Where is Keith?" Lance asks aloud, as if reading her mind—or more likely, he's noticed his absence on his own. More than anyone else on the team, Lance is well-attuned to the presence of the people around him. "Quiznak, is he at the ships?"

"But if he got out, the doors would've opened," Hunk says.

Instead of speculating, Pidge begins tapping fervently again on her holopad.

Allura bites the inside of her cheek. So no one has seen him. "Shiro was talking to General Unrok before the sentries began shooting. He said Keith interrupted them and manipulated her into a private conversation. They never came back."

Hunk stammers. "Are you serious?"

Lance's back is stiff against hers. "That quiznaking dumbfudge," he whispers. "Pidge, how's Operation Beat 'Em At Their Own Game going?"

"Already ordered some of them to go looking for Keith," she says, gaze engrossed and strained on a number of small camera feeds on her screen. "They'll tell me if they find him. The Purification officers are pretty much down for the count. No sign of General Unrok among them."

Allura's stomach churns.

"Oh, man," Hunk mutters, sounding just as ill.

"Okay." Lance's shoulders rise in a deep inhale. His next word is commanding. "Shiro."

"Lance?" the man calls from the end of the hall.

"Stay here and keep watch with Pidge. Me, Hunk, and Allura are gonna go out and see if we can find Keith. Pidge, if a sentry finds him or General Unrok, give us a holler and meet us."

"Gotcha," she replies, returning to tap at her holopad.

Lance inhales again, and his back leaves hers. Allura turns to clamber up in time for Lance to offer her a hand. His expression is intent, but there's an anxious tremor to his mouth that belies his confidence. To any other, that fear would tarnish the figure he strikes with his rifle and ragged suit.

To Allura, the fear is why she loves him. No one afraid for another person will ever be weak in her eyes.

She takes his hand. His grip is cold and far too tight.

When the three of them leave the hall, they stay together. Pidge's sentries will cover more ground in a much faster time than the three of them could manage split up. Better to remain close, and not waste time trying to find the other two again when Keith or General Unrok are inevitably found.

A few meters from the archway, the Purification officers are in a pile on the floor, bound in ropes. The conscious ones glare at her from behind the protective wall of sentries.

She smiles at them. Good riddance.

The first couple minutes of their search is fruitless. Allura stalks along in silent frustration and sorrow in turn as they step over fallen partygoers. There are many of them. Out of respect, she lifts her cape with her free hand to keep the ends of it from dragging across their limbs. She never expected her pink dress to become quite so fitting tonight.

Her heart in her throat reminds her that the body count might include one more.

No. Not when they haven't resolved anything. She has to trust in Keith.

They do find a shivering group of Jeni caterers in what turns out to be the kitchen, whom they direct to their hall.

Not long after, they're returning the way they came when a sentry jogs through to meet them. " _Guys,_ " crackles Pidge's voice from the sentry. " _Get over here. Some of the sentries found the general._ "

They exchange glances, then break out into a run.

Pidge is waiting for them in the ballroom with Shiro. Before anyone can question her wisdom, she says, "There are sentries guarding everyone else. They're gonna be fine."

"Where's General Unrok?" Lance pants.

Pidge points towards a hall near the back, where a handful of sentries are gathered by the archway.

"According to the cameras, she's dead," she says.

———

General Unrok lies facedown a meter within the hall, blood pooled beneath her.

Allura stands over her head, gazing down. Against reason, she hoped the general would negotiate with them honestly. Barring that, surrender. Her death isn't a regret, but she is disappointed. She's her father's daughter.

Shiro crouches over her corpse. "Three shots," he says with a frown. He points at the side and shoulder blade under the back of the general's armor, where two scorched holes have pierced it. It, thankfully, is apparently too ornamental to provide much protection against laserfire. He then gestures at the one where her heart would be. "This took her down for good, obviously."

"But who shot her?" Hunk asks. "A sentry?"

Pidge shakes her head. "There's no way. These shots came from behind. None of the sentries were even nearby when I took over."

They all look back down the hall. It's too dim to make out much past a few meters.

"The last person she must have been with was Keith," Pidge says.

She's almost certainly right about that. But— "But Keith couldn't have shot her," Allura replies, brow furrowing. "I wouldn't put it past him to hide a weapon, but the entrance inspection was thorough. And a sword could hardly shoot lasers."

"It's like playing Clue," Hunk mutters. "Professor Plum in the ballroom with the revolver."

"And we're definitely not detectives," Pidge adds.

"Guys," Lance says. His tone is tremulous.

Allura looks up, as do the others. Lance has walked around Shiro to pick up a short sword cast aside a distance from General Unrok. He displays it towards them flat-side up, expression ill. There's shining blood along the blade.

Allura's heart skips.

Without another word, Shiro stands up from General Unrok's corpse and runs down the hall.

The blood on the weapon is fresh. Thin streams of it trickle down one edge of the metal. Allura stares, stone still and trembling, at a fat drop of it that falls from the tip to splash onto the floor.

She can't do this again. She _can't._

Shiro yells from a distance. "He's here!"

Then Lance flings the sword aside, and the spell is broken.

_Keith._

Allura doesn't remember turning after him, nor running. The next she sees is Shiro's hand lit up with a mechanical hum, hovering over them to illuminate the hall. At his feet gleams more blood.

Keith lies there on his back, eyes closed and still. The blood is all over his shirt and hand, where he undoubtedly placed it to put some pressure on whatever wound lies beneath. Beside his hand is his bayard. The grip is liberally painted with his blood. So much blood. Oh, Ancients.

Shiro is kneeling by Keith now. He holds his human hand just over his lips and nose.

He says with profound relief, "A bit fast, but he's breathing."

Oh, _Ancients_.

Pidge's laugh is shrill and strained thin, about how Allura's insides feel like. "Of—of course he is. He's basically a cockroach."

"Oh, man," Hunk says, voice thick, and staggers back the way they came.

Allura doesn't realize that there's a hand gripping hers tight until it leaves. Lance stumbles past her to Keith's other side, drops to his knees, and asks, "Shiro, what should we do?"

Shiro is pressing his fingers to the crook of Keith's neck. "Check his wound. His hand's covering it."

Lance hesitates. "But the blood—"

"The blood loss isn't as bad as it looks." Shiro's grimace is conceding. "Though still pretty bad. He's not putting much pressure on it unconscious anyway. Just take a quick look. We don't know what's there."

Lance nods and gently lifts Keith's hand by the wrist.

It—

Allura has to look away as soon as she sees it. She swallows down the surge of nausea. If this is why Hunk staggered away as soon as he knew Keith was alive, she has the deepest sympathies.

"Um, Shiro," Lance says. His tone is wavering. "I'm pretty sure this is bad."

There's a rustle of someone shifting position, and Allura shuts her eyes. She may not know much about human anatomy, but even she's sure that things from inside peeking outside instead bodes ill.

Indeed, Shiro's inhale is sharp. "Damn. That is definitely out of my skill set."

"What do we do?"

"Um." Shiro takes a deep breath. "Honestly, I'm not sure. It's only a little bit, so... try to push it back inside, if you can. We can't stitch it closed here, so keep your hands over the wound once it's in. We still need to stem the bleeding, too, at least until the Lions get here. You guys have called the Lions, right?"

"I have," Allura says, still not looking.

There's a pause and a muttered, "Oh, Christ," from Lance. He must have nodded.

"Me, too. There's some more sentries outside," Pidge says from behind Allura. Her voice is quiet and a little queasy. She imagines that Pidge isn't looking very closely, either. "Once the Lions get here, they can help carry Keith out."

"Good idea, Pidge," Shiro says.

Lance is muttering to himself, too softly to be understood save for the pained pitch of it, and Allura winces. She wishes she could tread closer to... provide moral support somehow. But then Keith groans, long and low, and Allura startles so hard she's sure she nearly hits her head on the ceiling.

"Jesus," Lance hisses. "Come on... there."

Keith groans again.

Allura peeks through a lattice of her fingers and sighs in relief. Lance's hands are placed solidly over Keith's wound. As long as she doesn't think too hard about why his hands are so bloody, it's all right.

Keith stirs, eyelids fluttering.

Heart in her throat, Allura can't help but take a step closer now to Lance's side. Shiro's lips are pressed together as he watches, so Lance is the one who says uncertainly, "Keith?"

His eyes finally drift open. And—

Even in the poor light, Allura can tell. They're different. The irises are far too narrow.

Keith's head turns incrementally towards Lance. He blinks blearily, brow creasing. "Lance?"

His voice. All at once, the upheaval of emotions inside Allura threaten to overwhelm her. She blinks back tears, pressing the back of her hand to her lips. It's absurd in this situation, but his voice—soft, and so vulnerable. Nothing at all like what she's heard from him in the past two months. And everything like how he used to be around them.

She misses him so much. And Sages, he's alive.

Keith's eyes land on her, and she stills. "Allura," he mumbles, the softness breaking her heart, and then something in his gaze sharpens. " _Shiro_."

"Right here, Keith," Shiro says. "Can you tell us what happened?"

"General Unrok..." Keith groans. "God, that hurts."

Lance glances at his hands, where he's pressing down on Keith's wound. "Shiro?"

"Don't let up," Shiro warns. "Keith, you okay?"

"As much as you can expect from me right now," he says, words slightly blurred and uneven. Shiro was right; he is breathing a bit fast. "What happened... Went here with General Unrok to talk. She said some things about leadership. She was around when Zarkon still led Voltron. A foot soldier in his army."

Allura purses her lips and looks back at the archway where the general's body rests. So not just a general, but a murderer of her people.

Well. She's less disappointed now.

"Then she talked about how she killed some of the Blades." Keith's strange gaze refocuses, and his voice grows a slight clearer. "She pissed me off on purpose and got my defenses low. She said to attack. She told them to target you."

Shiro glances up at his floating arm, covered in laser burns. "It did seem like some of them were targeting me specifically," he muses.

"You're not hurt? The Coalition?"

"Keith, we're all fine," Shiro says. "You're the injured one here. Did General Unrok do it?"

"Yeah. When she caught me off-guard." Keith's grimace is sardonic. "This whole thing was a trap."

Lance laughs, but the corners of his eyes are tight. "Well, no duh. I told you so, didn't I?"

Keith's eyes roll towards him. For a second, they flash with an anger that's far too familiar. Allura tenses, already ill at the sight.

But it fades.

His sigh is a confession. "Yeah. You told me."

Lance's mouth is trembling again, and something in Allura's chest twinges in sympathy. The coiled nerves in her don't quite know where to go either, now that her anticipation has disappeared like so much smoke. She kneels beside him and puts a hand on his shoulder, squeezing. Minutely, he leans into her.

Keith's gaze slips away from them. "Hey," he murmurs. "Did you see her?"

The general, she assumes. Lance doesn't quite look steady, so Allura says, "Yes."

Keith's smile is slow and sweet. "I did that. Stole your trick, sharpshooter."

Pidge was right? The blood on his bayard. Allura glances at the stained grip, and in a flash of understanding, she realizes. "You have a new bayard form," she says, and as she does, something deep and low in her chest rumbles.

Thank the Ancients—the Blue Lion has arrived.

By the flicker of relief that passes over Lance's face, she guesses that Red has reached them, too.

"Don't know if it's permanent. It was kind of a desperate situation." Keith looks back at them, and through the sweat and wanness of his skin, there's guilt. "Hey. Look. I'm, uh. I'm really sorry. I've been... well, a really big jerk."

Oh.

Oh, Sages. He's trying to apologize _now_.

Allura has to press the back of her hand to her lips again, this time to hold in a stunned giggle.

"Are you—you're really doing this right now," Lance says in an echo of her thoughts, voice flabbergasted. "While I'm holding your guts in with my bare hands."

"Oh. Are you?"

"Holy cheeseballs," Lance groans, but the smile that splits his face is half-giddy and so fond. "Yeah? I mean, basically. Like a small bit of your guts. It was really gross. And now you're bleeding all over your really nice jacket _and_ my hands. You know how much moisturizer it takes to maintain this flawless skin? Seriously, how the quiznak do you get yourself in this kind of mess?"

"I guess by not listening to you," Keith says.

Lance stares at him, and yes, that's love alongside the frustration in his eyes. Allura knows the sight of it well. "See? Why can't you just admit that before everything goes to quiznak in a handbasket?"

Keith smiles back just as fondly, but his brow furrows. "I don't understand how you can forgive me that easily."

This time, Allura can't hold in the snort.

She loves Keith. But _honestly_.

Lance tosses her a similarly amused look, then says, "Well, not to say we _have_ forgiven you. That's a whole 'nother conversation that we are not having right now, not when you really ought to get stitched up and tossed into a pod. You idiot."

"Hey," Keith complains.

"Oh, shush," Allura says, and Sages, but talking to him like this again warms every corner of her heart. Even if the current circumstances are less than ideal. "Considering where we are, I think it's safe to say that you being an idiot this time around is established fact."

"Literally holding in your guts with my bare hands," Lance reminds.

Keith looks over at Shiro. "Can you just let me die now? I feel terrible _and_ they're harassing me."

Shiro, who has been watching them with glee, shrugs helplessly. "Sorry, Keith. That's just what happens when you have friends."

"Oh my god," Keith groans.

The shadows around them flicker as footsteps thump through the hall. Allura turns to see a few of the sentries, Pidge, and Hunk walking towards them. Hunk holds an electric torch in his hand that illuminates the hall much more effectively than Shiro's hand.

"Keith's good, right?" Hunk asks. "Everyone's good?"

"Because I don't know if you've noticed, but the Lions are here," Pidge adds.

"Good," Shiro sighs.

In the better light, Keith's eyes are even more clearly off. Allura can see the yellow where they should be white, as well as the slit look to his pupils. Like a Galra's. They're narrowing in an attempt at focus. "Are those... Galra sentries?" he asks, tone baffled.

"Yeah," Pidge says. "I repurposed them."

Keith hms. "Well. Nice job."

Pidge rolls her eyes, but there's the light of satisfaction in them. "Because you were such a help."

"Okay, I'm sorry, and also I'm sorry to interrupt," Hunk says, swallowing and pinching his nose, "but I'm really not gonna be helpful here. Keith, I'm really happy you're kinda okay. Please get over to the Lions soon. Pidge, take the flashlight. I'm gonna... get the Coalition people loaded."

He hurries back out, and Allura winces in sympathy.

"Hey, Allura?" Lance says. "Big favor to ask."

"Yes?"

Lance nods down at himself. "Can you untie my cummerbund and get it tied around Keith instead? I don't think keeping my hands on the wound is gonna work very great for moving him."

Shiro is already nodding. "Good idea. We can use your jacket as padding, too."

Lance hesitates. "Do I have to?"

Keith stares at him in disbelief. So does Shiro.

"It's the only one I have," he defends.

"We can use my cape," Allura sighs, already reaching for the clasps at her neck. "Likely it'll be more comfortable anyway. I assure you that the jacket Lance is wearing is both stiff and thick. I doubt it will absorb blood very well."

"You try to find a good jacket when the stores got razed and the economy's still a question mark," Lance grumbles.

They fold up her cape into a square. Shiro suspects that exposing any organs to air or dry cloth for an extended period of time would be harmful, so Pidge sends a sentry to come back with water. They soak the underside of the cloth square in it and take care to ensure the wound remains closed underneath as they slide it beneath Lance's hands.

Lance keeps the cape firmly in position as Allura and Shiro slip his cummerbund around and under Keith, Pidge holding the torch over them. They tie it tightly.

"You good?" Shiro asks Keith, whose eyes have begun to drift shut.

"Yeah," he mumbles. "Just... too tired for pain."

The spike of anxiety in Allura is somewhat eased by Shiro's calm response. "Go ahead. We'll still be here when you wake up."

Keith sighs. "Hope so."

As if he can't really expect them to be. That digs into something tender in Allura's chest. She glances at Lance and finds him already looking at her, mouth turned down. Now that they know what they're looking for, it's so much easier to see. They still need to talk to Keith. But later. Much later.

He takes a length to fall into some kind of sleep. It's a tense one.

When he does, Shiro again presses his fingers to the crook of Keith's neck. "Definitely a little fast. We should get him stitched and into a pod as soon as possible."

Pidge gestures the sentries over. When Allura stands up, Lance doesn't.

She curls a hand around his shoulder. He sighs and leans into the touch. He always does. When he puts a hand over hers, she laces her fingers through his, and he finally gets up. They move aside to make room for the sentries.

"We're going to be there," he murmurs, hand still in hers.

When awake, Keith is always a forceful presence. Especially these days, Allura has looked at him and seen someone ironclad and firm in his self-sufficiency. But now he's limp in the sentries' arms. He's just as frail and fallible and afraid as the rest of them.

"Yes, we will," she replies.

———

The first thing Keith is fully aware of again is the hands holding him steady.

He blinks groggily up at Lance and Allura and feels himself smile. A part of him aches and hisses at him to pull away, but it's a part of him he decides to ignore. Maybe with _Lance and Allura_ there's no room for him anymore, but that doesn't mean they're not still friends. Keith needs to stop hurting them, and himself.

Besides. He misses being held by them. Just this once.

"Hey," he mumbles. "Gut feels great now."

"Yes. You're back to full health," Allura says softly.

"Welcome back to the land of the living, Keith buddy," Lance says, squeezing his arm with a warm smile. "Take a deep breath. You're about to get hugged really hard."

Keith blinks. "What?"

Then Allura and Lance are wedged up hard against his sides as people pile in and squash them together. Coran's face is above, streaming tears of course. He's probably the one who stitched Keith's wound. Shiro's prosthetic arm digs itself into his back, while Pidge wraps wiry limbs tight around his waist.

Hunk envelops all of them, and he buries his nose in Keith's hair and says, "Next time, don't get an injury that makes me vomit. I don't like not being able to help."

"I'm pretty sure if I get injured again, Lance will kill me," Keith wheezes.

"You're quiznaking right," Lance says in his ear.

"I'll bring the shovel," Pidge adds.

Keith closes his eyes and sucks in as much breath as he can. It's so warm, and the smile on his face is so wide it hurts. He almost wouldn't mind suffocating to death like this.

Eventually, they all let go. But Lance's arm brushes his arm, and Allura's hand brushes his hand, and Keith still can't breathe.

"We have a gimungous feast laid out for you, Number Four!" Coran exclaims, then pauses with a sly look. "Or Number Three?"

"Oh, no," Lance says. "We are not doing this again. I'm still taller than him!"

There's a strange tension in the air. The last time this question got raised, Keith responded to Lance's vehemence with a stab at his sense of priorities. Lance snapped at him in baffled anger about taking jokes as jokes, and Keith hissed back that maybe he ought to start taking his _job_ more seriously before stalking out of the stunned room.

The memory makes Keith feel sick, so he ducks his head and mumbles, "I mean, uh, I only grew like a couple more inches—"

"Stand up straight, Keith," Allura commands.

Keith looks up at her, startled. "What?"

Lance is goggling at her from across him. "Allura?"

"We are going to settle this once and for all, right now," she says, with a glint in her eyes that has the back of Keith's neck flushing with the realization that she saw his discomfort. "Both of you. Heels together, backs straight. No tip-toes."

Keith looks at Lance, who is looking at him.

Lance shuts his hanging mouth, disoriented expression morphing near-instantly into a confident one. "I'm taller," he taunts.

Oh. Well, he can't exactly take _that_ lying down.

"We'll see," Keith replies, the corners of his mouth turning up.

It takes a full minute of team harassment for both Lance and Keith's postures to be in a collectively acceptable position. Pidge and Hunk argue about who looks taller the entire time, with both of them unsuccessfully trying to harangue Shiro into taking their side. Coran whips out a ruler from nowhere for Allura to place atop the crowns of their heads.

She deliberates with a lot of hums. Lance's back is tense against his.

Eventually, she announces, "Keith is taller."

Wait. _Really?_

Hunk throws up his hands in defeat while Pidge cheers and sticks her tongue out at him. She and Coran high-five. From the back, Shiro gives Keith a discreet wink and thumbs-up.

"What?" Lance yells. "Allura!"

"Just by a few hairs," she assures him, tone full of held-in laughter. "Barely an inch, really."

"An inch!" Lance has on an expression of utter betrayal. "Is it a few hairs or an inch, Allura, because that's a really big difference!"

A snicker escapes Keith's lips.

Lance whirls on him, the picture of offense. "Hey!"

Keith can't help it. He laughs. He wraps his arms around himself and laughs so hard his eyes tear up and the side where General Unrok sliced him open twinges in complaint. His friends are absolutely, utterly ridiculous, and that's why he's so glad he has them.

When he's recovered enough to stand up straight again, Lance's own mouth is clearly struggling to maintain his pout. But he says, "Come here and laugh in my face."

"Wasn't I just doing that?" Keith points out, but he steps forward until he's barely a breath away from Lance.

Huh. Now that he's paying attention, it does kind of feel like he's looking down.

Lance is staring—up?—at him, and beneath his glower, his face starts flushing pink. Keith stares in disbelief, thinking it's from anger, until Lance's gaze flickers down a little and Keith realizes that the flicker of a glance is to his mouth.

Just like that, heat is rising to his face, too.

Oh, no.

Keith manages a weak, "Haha," and takes a swift step back. They're way too close, and everyone's around them, and Lance is dating someone else (who Keith also doesn't know if he)—

Wait. _Allura._

He takes a quick, terrified glance at her. And yes, she's just a foot away and still watching them. Except...

Keith may be unsure on how to read Allura's expressions now, but he's pretty certain that _angry_ or _horrified_ are easy things to recognize in anyone. Except Allura isn't either of them. In fact, she's smiling, and there's a weird thoughtfulness to her gaze that sends a frisson down Keith's spine.

She raises her eyebrows at him.

Keith looks away, face still hot and an odd anticipation in his gut. He has no idea what's happening anymore.

"Now that that's settled," Coran says, clapping his hands. The look of glee on his face is smug. "Number Three."

Lance whimpers.

"We are all going to head to the dining room and have our feast since, after all, time in a pod always starves the Zarbloovian intestinal eel," Coran announces. "I know mine is. We've been waiting to eat lunch with you, you see. Away!"

He spins and strides toward the exit with Shiro alongside. Pidge and Hunk are closely following, already chattering about the dishes they cooked with the rations and what they most want to eat. From what he can hear, all of it sounds good.

Keith _is_ pretty hungry, now that he's thinking about it.

He takes a step, planning to head to his room first and change from the podsuit into actual clothes, when Allura says, "Keith."

He stops and turns. Allura's expression is serious now, the strange smile gone.

"We're going to go and eat," she says. "And we're going to enjoy ourselves. But after that, we need to have that talk. All right?"

And there's the dread. "Yeah. 'Course." He inhales to steady himself. "Uh, but... why?"

"Why?"

"Just that, um..." Keith raises his fingers to his scar, glancing away. "I'm really glad you guys want to talk to me, I'm not saying I'm not. But you said so before I even, uh, did anything to deserve it, I guess. I'm still not really sure how I do now. So, why?"

"Oh," Allura says.

Lance's voice comes in. "You remember when, uh, we were arguing over breakfast before the ball and I left? Well, I went to talk to Shiro." His tone turns just a little bit awed. "Did you seriously steal his car when you were thirteen?"

"Yeah," Keith replies with a grimace, then he realizes. "Wait, _that's_ why he brought it up again."

Lance and Allura glance at each other. "No idea what you're talking about," Lance says, "but if you're wondering about why, well... he told us about that. And about a few other things. And basically, though this should really be saved for the actual conversation... you know that we're never gonna _not_ want you around, right?"

"I mean," Keith says. "I can guess you don't want me around _all_ the time."

Lance's mouth twists in a bizarre mix of humor, pain, and something weird Keith can't decipher. "Not what I mean. Keith, you're our friend. No amount of changing or time warping or whatever thing you're thinking in your brain is gonna make us hate you."

"I mean," Keith says.

"Stop that," Allura says mildly. "Stop trying to change our minds."

Keith shuts his mouth. She's right.

That's why he stole Shiro's car, after all, so long ago. He was in the seat of that flying simulator and doing better than every other kid there. Shiro—not a friend yet, but still a household name—was _impressed_. Then Keith heard his school principal tell Shiro all about his mistakes, and he went blind with fury. But the fury wasn't just about the mistakes.

People never want him. People always leave him. Somehow, he's never been good enough to make any of them stay.

It was so much easier to not like them first, to make them not like him first. Because at least then, he could tell himself that was what he wanted. At least then, he wouldn't _try_ and find out that it still wasn't good enough.

But Shiro stayed. Even when his mom and dad hadn't, he stayed.

"Sorry," he says.

Allura's smile is fond. "We should really be saving this talk for later. It's going to be a long one."

"Yeah, honestly, I'm starving," Lance says, putting a hand on his stomach. "I need some food in this thing before we start throwing around words like 'forgiveness,' 'communication,' and 'childhood abandonment issues.' Sorry, Keith."

Keith grimaces, brushing at his scar again. "You're not really wrong."

Lance strides on past after the rest of the team. Allura begins to follow but pauses in front of Keith. He watches her uncertainly as she places a warm hand on his shoulder.

"Keith," she murmurs. "Lance didn't quite mention this, but we missed you a lot. Not only while you were gone."

"I missed you guys, too." Keith swallows, guilt crawling up his throat. "Allura. I'm sorry."

Allura's smile is small but understanding. She knows what else he's talking about. But then it shifts into something abashed. "This is a bit hypocritical of me, as I know I've been insistent on the talking first... but would you mind if I took dibs on the first hug?"

Oh.

"Not at all," Keith says quietly.

He opens his arms, and she falls in.

Allura's warmth is still familiar in a way that makes his heart hurt. She sighs, and her breath brushes against the crook between his neck and shoulder. Keith shuts his eyes in relief as he puts his arms around her. He's missed this so much.

It feels like he's come home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> find me at [@primrose-path-of-dalliance](https://primrose-path-of-dalliance.tumblr.com) on tumblr, where i post fandom things and the occasional bit of writing.


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